musicians of old

Chapter 817 How Beautiful the Morning Star Shines
Ruoyi experienced significant altitude sickness.

Initially, perhaps the novelty and excitement distracted me from the unusual sensations, but since arriving in Kalpa, as the altitude has increased and the intensity of acclimatization training has gradually increased, my body has finally started to feel unwell.

Dizziness, fatigue, and difficulty breathing.

Fanning suggested that they rest for another day before heading to the final mountain camp.

Ruoyi initially refused, but was eventually persuaded by Fanning.

"You see, this is the benefit of being too efficient in the early stages of the strategy; it saves an extra day."

"We've changed our departure time from tomorrow morning to the early morning. Three days is enough to reach the summit. It would be troublesome if anyone didn't get enough rest and something went wrong during the climb."

"Stop showing off, look at how you're blowing out that whistle."

Under the moonlight, Kalpa was serene, pure, and utterly silent.

The hotel's viewing platform hangs precariously on the edge of an abyss, with the snow-capped peaks in the distance gleaming eerily against the dark blue sky, like platinum blades tempered by moonlight.

"Okay, it suddenly feels like I was supposed to go to school tomorrow, but I was suddenly told I had a day off."

Ruoyi's nose was red from the cold. She withdrew her gaze from the distance, tightened the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and chest, and the weariness in her eyes was tinged with amber by the fireplace firelight.

Even with this extra day, I still need to go out and do the acclimatization training, but it won't be as intense. Plus, the appointment for Qiong as my mountain guide has been finalized, and the preparation of supplies has been completed, so I still have some free time.

The only short period of time during the trip that truly felt like "travel".

Fanning avoided the increasingly crowded apple orchards and had the driver stop the car in a lush, green clearing where the path forked, leading Ruoyi into the pastoral trail filled with prayer flags.

A truly "niche route".

The observatory built by German travelers in the last century is hidden in the fir forest across the road. Although it has been abandoned for many years, the brass sextant covered with moss can still be turned. Two people stand in front of it, fiddling with the compass in their hands, looking like they know how to calibrate it very well.

"Where is Polaris?" Ruoyi asked a few minutes later.

“The direction of this gap.” Fan Ning’s finger touched a piece of stone.

"Are you sure?" Ruoyi pressed.

“That’s what they say online,” Fan Ning said seriously.

Amidst the chirping of birds, the girl looked up in his direction with some skepticism, only to see sunlight illuminating the crevices in the rocks, casting shadows on the dial with patches of light.

"Come on. By the way, what's in that bag of food?"

"You can't eat magnesium bars."

After a few turns, the two entered a crevice in the cliff face. Fan Ning lit a magnesium strip and threw it into the fluorescent mine in front of them.

"Huff, huff, huff—"

The white light instantly awakened the dark space, and more dazzling light burst forth around the originally faint array of phosphorescent dots.

Taking advantage of the brief visual memory, Fan Ning swung his shovel, first knocking and then hooking, bringing up a piece of rainbow calcite from the edge of the vein. Ruoyi curiously placed it in her palm to examine it, her pupils refracting into a strange kaleidoscope.

"Wow! It's prettier than a diamond! Fanning, we've struck gold! What price could this fetch at auction?"

"Hmm? If it's processed to a good quality, it can cost several hundred yuan per kilogram."

"What!?"

Fan Ning smiled and gestured for them to turn and retreat.

Beside the Sabuhashi Spring in the mountains, Ruoyi was drawn to a monk who claimed to be able to divine. The old man scooped up water from the spring with a copper ladle and predicted fortunes by observing the direction of the swirling eddies. "What does that mean?" Ruoyi asked, watching the spring water she had personally opened form a counter-clockwise swirling pattern in the ladle, sometimes shallow, sometimes deep.

“Your fate is like mountain mist,” the old monk replied.

"Does it mean it will dissipate?"

"The water itself does not dissipate, but the water vapor does, leaving its damp mark."

"I don't understand." Ruoyi shrugged.

"Alright, alright, this isn't the guide I made." Fan Ning left a banknote and urged Ruoyi to go around to the mountain path behind the spring.

"If it's not this, then what is it?"

"Of course it's delicious."

Hidden inside the cave is an inconspicuous old tea shop. The woman uses an iron pot to boil pine needle rock tea. After pouring the tea into a silver-inlaid wooden bowl, she adds glacial sea buckthorn berries. The resulting tea has a lingering sour and sweet aftertaste.

There is also an amber-colored jelly made by kneading roses and saffron with yak milk oil, which seems to contain barley wine. It has a silky smooth taste of milk and honey at first, and then turns into a rich and mellow aroma.

"It's delicious! I can't stop eating it." Ruoyi exclaimed in admiration. "Hey, how do you find all these weird and wonderful places?"

“That’s what they say online,” Fan Ning shrugged, repeating the same old story.

In the afternoon, the two began their "exploration" at a church cellar left over from the colonial era—the kind that costs money. The lazy caretaker opened the cellar with a brass key, revealing oak barrels containing dregs of sherry from the last century. Fanning shone his phone's flashlight on the brick wall, and the two stood in front of the navigation map and "treasure mark" carved by the crew for a while, lost in thought.

"It has a strong vintage feel, and the tips are a bit expensive," Ruoyi commented, but Fanning had to pull her away twice before she could leave.

As the car made a short detour on the way home at dusk, passing through temples and canyons, Fanning suddenly suggested that Ruoyi close her eyes and "take a deep breath for thirty seconds."

The moment she fell into darkness, her hearing suddenly sharpened. She felt the icy stream tearing open beneath her feet, the prayer flag ropes rustling in the wind, and her oxygen-deprived heartbeat beating in a tango-like rhythm behind her eardrums.

"Why don't you close your eyes?" she asked, turning her head.

"Let's see your reaction." Fan Ning shifted the pillow to her other arm.

The vehicle drove back to the summer pasture not far from the apple orchard. It had already closed for early winter, and the area was deserted and desolate.

Fanning unfolded and secured the portable windproof curtain, then magically spread out a picnic blanket. He then ceremoniously scattered a large handful of broken rainbow calcite around the blanket. The moment the campfire was lit, the two seemed to be sitting in a sky full of stars.

The air was filled with the aroma of pine resin and sulfur. Fanning began preparing dinner. He wrapped smoked trout in wild chives and capers, lined up slices of wild apples cured with Kalpa rock salt, dipped milk toast in Himalayan black honey, and laid out freshly cut and marinated yak meat from the market on the grill.

"Oh, so you can cook?"

"They've all prepared the food in advance."

Fanning flipped the sizzling, oily skewers of meat, sprinkling them with wild mint and edelweiss flakes. The sunset, like wine splashed across the sky behind his profile, cast a brighter band of stars that seemed to gracefully descend from the distant, faintly visible summit of Leo Pargial.

What a fleeting moment it was! Ruoyi couldn't help but think that the sunset was perhaps the wings of this world, possessing a truly instantaneous quality, like a swarm of bees flapping their wings to collect honey. Every instant, the combination of colors that flashed was elusive. Perhaps it was also flashing in the present world, revealing the possibilities of various colors. All things thus mingled in magnificence and trance, before finally falling and disappearing.

"What are you looking at?" Fan Ning turned around.

"Look at you, you're both interesting and hard to understand. Sometimes it's like looking at a distant star."

"What a strange metaphor! How could it be that far away?"

“The stars look very bright.” The girl put her arms behind her back. “I remember Bach has a very beautiful cantata called ‘How Beautiful the Morning Star Is.’ Whether it’s the morning star or the evening star, that light may have been transmitted from tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even hundreds of millions of years ago. Perhaps the celestial body that shone on it no longer exists, but to me, it still feels real. It is real.”

Fan Ning remained silent for a long time after listening, but then suddenly asked casually:
"I said, have you really not considered going back?"